Book 1 – Boneyards

Book 1 of the FTW Series.

A Young Adult / New Adult Fight for Survival in a Dystopian Future.

Released: August 30th, 2016

Pages: 238

Note: As of December 2016 the title of this book has changed to “Boneyards”. It was previously known as “FTW”, but after inspiration struck and I wrote a sequel to it, I decided to rebrand it to better suit the series.

Echo Fox lives in a boneyard. It’s a brutal and inescapable existence where life is worthless and outsiders kill without conscience. It’s the only life she’s ever known. A world where one company – FTW – controls everything including the air you breathe.

The day after Echo turns sixteen, outsiders murder the only person she’s ever loved. With nothing else to lose, Echo vows revenge on the outsiders. Leaving the only life she knows behind her, Echo goes from the lowest place on Earth to one where nothing is beyond her reach.

In this world beyond her imagination, if FTW discover her true intentions it will mean the end of her life as well.

Genesis of Boneyards

The idea for this story came from an idea I had where the world’s air had become so toxic that most people now lived their lives indoors. One company had the monopoly on air-scrubbers which made the air clean again, and so since they controlled the air people breathed they controlled life. By the time I’d finished the first draft this idea had faded away somewhat, it’s still the reason why the company – FoxTech Worldwide (FTW) – is the most powerful on the planet, but it was no longer the main point of the story.

The story kind of evolved with a life of its own, and I was happy to write it the way it wanted to be written.

Characters

The name Echo Fox, the main protagonist of the story, came in part from a lady I met in a park one day. Her surname was Fox, and because I’m always on the lookout for names that strike a chord with me I jotted it down. I’ve neglected to keep notes about her first name which bugs me a little, but I think it had a little do with the phonetic alphabet (Delta, Echo, Foxtrot, Golf, et cetera).

The character of Kara evolved quite a lot while I was writing. One major point was I hadn’t fully decided on if the character was to be male or female. While I was writing the first draft of FTW, the hashtag #GiveElsaAGirlfriend kicked off on twitter and I thought ‘People shouldn’t have to ask for diversity in their characters, writers should just do it’. So that solidified it for me. I made Kara female and gave Echo a girlfriend.

The Bitza brothers surname came about while I was fleshing out their characters. I imagined them as buying “bits of this, bits of that” which Bosco ends up saying during one scene where they meet. Bishop Bitza was named after Bishop from Alien movie franchise which I’ve always been a fan of. Bosco, somewhat less auspicious in I wanted alliterating names and the episode of Seinfeld with George’s ATM code came to mind.

Finally, there’s a very minor character named Lana Bixby. Her first name I borrowed from my sister’s cat, who has a tendency of leaving claw and bite marks on my drafts while my sister is beta reading. I gave Lana a special mention in the front “Acknowledgements” section of FTW for her special brand of critiquing. The surname Bixby, I have no idea, thought it may have had something to do with The Incredible Hulk.